On May 30, the Catholic Church celebrates St. Jeanne d’Arc's Day.
Jeanne d’Arc ( co. fr. Jeanne d'Arc ) — patroness of the military and France. In 1920, by official decree of Pope Benedict XV, Jeanne d’Ark was ranked among the saints, although people have worshiped her for centuries.
Jeanne was born in 1412 in the French village of Domremi. At the age of 12, she was the first revelation. According to her, Jeanne heard the voices of Archangel Michael, St. Catherine and St. Margarita, who prepared her for the special mission of the savior of France. The country was in a critical position — all of northern France was occupied by the British, the army was extremely weakened, the question arose of the independence of the French state.
Over time, the voices that Jeanne hears urge her to take action. Jeanne d’Arc, having hardly made her way from the territory occupied by the British and their allies — by the Burgunders, to the city of Shinon to Dauphin Karl, convinces him that the Most High speaks through her.
Put at the head of the army, Jeanne d’Arc, a 17-year-old girl, showed courage and inspired the people to fight the enemy. She broke through with the troops into Orleans besieged by the British and on May 8, 1429 forced them to lift the siege of the city, for which the people began to call her the Orleans virgin. A series of victories won by Jeanne d’Arc allowed Dauphin Karl ( Charles VII ) July 17, 1429 to be crowned in Reims.
However, the king and the aristocratic elite, frightened by the wide scope of the popular war and the growing popularity of Jeanne, actually removed her from the army command. On May 23, 1430, when she pulled out of the besieged Compiegne, Jeanne d’Arc was captured by the Burgunders as a result of betrayal and was sold to the British. A church court in Rouen, where the judges were the French — accomplices of the invaders, accused Jeanne d’Arc of heresy and witchcraft and sentenced her to be burned at the stake. This happened on May 30, 1431.
The executioner was required to burn all the remains. Several times he laid burning brushwood and coals around Jeanne’s heart, but he could not turn the girl’s heart into ashes. Finally, struck, “as a clear miracle,” he stopped tormenting this Heart, put the Indecapable Kupina in a bag along with everything that remained of the Virgin’s flesh, and threw the bag into the Seine.
25 years after the execution in the new church trial in the case of Jeanne d’Arc, which took place in France in 1456, she was solemnly rehabilitated and recognized as the beloved daughter of the Church and France.